As an ophthalmic photographer by day, and a crafter by night, I welcome you to a world of my favorite things: crafting, primitives, folk art, photography, antiques, thrift stores, and general weirdness! Hope you find a few ideas here; Happy Crafting! :)

Happy Summer! Over the last few months, my crafty days have been few and far between. However, I recently managed to find some inspiration in this wooden scarecrow man that I found at a barn sale. I am on the committee for a local small town scarecrow festival, so I’m always on the hunt for cool scarecrows. For 25 cents I could not leave this guy behind! Parent love snapping pictures of their kids at festivals so I thought I’d make his long torso a ruler so kids can measure how tall they are!

This isn’t an everyday craft tutorial per sey; it’s kind of geared specifically for a Fall festival or party. The end result was too cute not to share though!

As you can see, his face was already painted. My original plan was to re-paint his face, but I LOVE vintage style characters and cartoons, and I kinda love his face as is! I decided to leave it and just spruce up the rest of his body.

Here he is when I got him:

First I painted his torso yellow which will soon become the ruler!

For projects that will be outside in the elements or need large areas of coverage, I’ve been using paint samples from Lowes. They are around $3 each and you can get them in virtually any color you can imagine. Just go to the paint counter in Lowes, give them your swatch, and ask for a sample. They come in these little screw-top containers that are great for keeping them on hand for your next project.

Anywho, I measured it out and used black paint to make the tick marks and foam stamps for the numbers and “ft.” The foam stamps can be hard to find, so alternatively you could use number stickers or just free-hand them.

The arms are just painted blue with little green squares to give him the country flannel look. I used a small square piece of kitchen sponge to dab on the green. I then added some dollar store garden gloves, a bright handkerchief around his neck, and a little faux flower on his hat!

Lastly I added the sign, which says “How tall are you?” dangling from his hand. He will stand up on a metal stake that he will be securely zipped-tied to with yellow zip ties.

It will make for a simple decoration at the scarecrow festival and maybe a fun memory to look back on and see how much the kids have grown!

Have a great holiday and I hope to be back soon! 🙂

Welcome to Eyeballs By Day, Crafts By Night!

As an ophthalmic photographer by day, and a crafter by night, I welcome you to a world of my favorite things: primitives, country crafts, folk art, photography, antiques, flea markets, thrift stores, eyeballs, and enjoying the simple things in life!